Well, not really, but it did have a lot of people on edge back in Christmas of ‘77. Including Bowie, who at the last minute said, “I hate this song. Isn’t there something else we can do?”
And the producers said, “Uhh…OK. Hold on.” And the three songwriters/arrangers/producers running the show scurried off into the back room, dug deep and whipped up the counterpoint version of “Peace on Earth” for Bowie. In 75 minutes.
Did somebody say ‘Under Pressure’? What pressure? Yikes.
The end result is something timeless.
Beautiful for its arrangement, flawless in its performance and classy in its inter-generational coming-togetherness, which was pretty stand out in those testy times.
Thirty five years before, Bing was at the top of his game selling millions of records (one of the top selling artists of the twentieth century –the top selling artist in the first half of the century) but in a completely different world with music that was light years away from Bowie in terms of style, attitude and tone. They were in and from two different universes. But their universes came together that night.
How different from today where the artists of thirty years ago are like the Gods of what is going on today. The Jack Whites sit in awe at the feet of the Jimmy Pages. Very different than Bowie, who had little in common with Crosby other than a great voice. He later said he only did it because he knew his mom liked Bing. These days the kids love Led Zeppelin as much as their parents (and now grandparents!) and the only difference is the parents saw them in concert.
How times have changed –there really isn’t a ‘generation gap’ anymore. In fact, it’s like today’s generation keeps trying to rewrite the songs (figuratively as well as literally) of yesteryear. Popular culture in the seventies was on a linear outward progression from the culture thirty years before and the music reflected it. Popular culture today is like a retro mash up of the last thirty years and the music reflects that as well. Sometimes painfully so.
A month after this was recorded Bing was dead from a heart attack. Long live the Bing. Long live the Spaceman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9kfdEyV3RQ
hey they even named a search engine after him…. Jk